² For you will be expelled from the synagogues, and the time is coming when those who kill you will think they are doing a holy service for God.

²² His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders, who had announced that anyone saying Jesus was the Messiah would be expelled from the synagogue.

⁹ “I used to believe that I ought to do everything I could to oppose the very name of Jesus the Nazarene.^{[a] 10} Indeed, I did just that in Jerusalem. Authorized by the leading priests, I caused many believers^[b] there to be sent to prison. And I cast my vote against them when they were condemned to death. ¹¹ Many times I had them punished in the synagogues to get them to curse Jesus.^[c] I was so violently opposed to them that I even chased them down in foreign cities.

² I know what enthusiasm they have for God, but it is misdirected zeal. ³ For they don’t understand God’s way of making people right with himself. Refusing to accept God’s way, they cling to their own way of getting right with God by trying to keep the law.

³ Then Paul said, “I am a Jew, born in Tarsus, a city in Cilicia, and I was brought up and educated here in Jerusalem under Gamaliel. As his student, I was carefully trained in our Jewish laws and customs. I became very zealous to honor God in everything I did, just like all of you today. ⁴ And I persecuted the followers of the Way, hounding some to death, arresting both men and women and throwing them in prison.

²⁸ “Don’t be afraid of those who want to kill your body; they cannot touch your soul. Fear only God, who can destroy both soul and body in hell.^[a]

⁹ When the Lamb broke the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of all who had been martyred for the word of God and for being faithful in their testimony.

¹⁹ “‘But Lord,’ I argued, ‘they certainly know that in every synagogue I imprisoned and beat those who believed in you. ²⁰ And I was in complete agreement when your witness Stephen was killed. I stood by and kept the coats they took off when they stoned him.’

²¹ “But the Lord said to me, ‘Go, for I will send you far away to the Gentiles!’”

²² The crowd listened until Paul said that word. Then they all began to shout, “Away with such a fellow! He isn’t fit to live!” ²³ They yelled, threw off their coats, and tossed handfuls of dust into the air.

⁴² Many people did believe in him, however, including some of the Jewish leaders. But they wouldn’t admit it for fear that the Pharisees would expel them from the synagogue.

²² What blessings await you when people hate you and exclude you and mock you and curse you as evil because you follow the Son of Man.